The biggest task for me has always been reminding my kids of what needs to be done. As a daycare provider, my house frequently appears as if a tornado has blown through. They get just as overwhelmed with the daunting tasks as I do. Telling them to "clean up" is about as useful as telling them to find their way to China. They don't know where to begin.
The first step in solving this was to make a list of kid-friendly chores that they could easily do without me having to helicopter parent. I don't have time to oversee everything, so it was imperative that I can trust them to do the tasks correctly or with little help. I'd tried chore charts in the past, but they always went ignored or forgotten, gathering dust just like everything else in the house. I needed a bartering tool...something to get them excited about helping. So I sat down thought really hard about it, and I came up with a genius Life Hack for this single mama. It was like I was given an "easy" button.
Once I had my list written, I broke it down between my three daughters, giving my 6 year old the easier jobs, my 9 and 11 year olds split the more difficult tasks. I tried as hard as I could to make equal amounts of chores every day to avoid complaining....cause I can't afford to supply enough cheese for all that whine.
The concept: Each child has a relatively equal opportunity to earn a sizable allowance with this method. You can see on the chart below that the chores are color coded so that each child is easily able to see which chores are their responsibility. When the child completes a chore for that day, they write their initials on the chart so that I can see it's been done. They also write their name on a circle, which then gets put into a jar. At the end of each month, I count up all the circles and pay out their allowance at 25¢ per circle. It usually ends up being about $5 per kid on average for the whole month. After the end of the month, the circles all get emptied into yet another jar, which will earn them a family activity of their choice when the jar is full. They also know that they aren't allowed any electronics usage until their daily chores are done. Thank you, Animal Jam, for being a mom's best friend! It has been the best bartering tool (and biggest pain in the ass!) I've ever come across.
Enter the "Family Chores" chart. The genius behind this chart is that I only have to print one copy, thus saving the trees, saving on ink, and saving me time. This chore chart hangs in a glass frame because - SURPRISE! - it's dry erasable! I used 3M Command Poster Strips to securely hang the chart in a low spot so that even my 6 year old can reach it to write her initials down whenever she completes a chore.
The dry erase markers are set near the edge of the counter and directly across from the chart so that it's all easily accessible to the kids, so they don't lose focus on the way from the chore to the chart. You may laugh, but distraction is a huge issue in my house, so I've taken to combating that in any way possible.
You can see in the left photo just above, the smaller uncovered jar is the jar holding the "family activity" circles. We've been collecting them for two months now and it's still not full. On the bright side, I think that a family activity on a quarterly basis (above and beyond our norm), isn't a bad deal! We're a pretty active family, always on the go, doing fun things, going places. So whatever they choose is bound to be extraordinary. Extraordinarily fun! And honestly, I'm looking forward to rewarding them for their diligence and hard work. Positive reinforcement works so much better than punishment for wrongdoing. Finding healthy ways to support our little ones with come back to us parents in so many ways!
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